Wolf at the Door (4 page)

“Hang on.” She could hear the woman moving in
the background, but the voice was muffled. Then finally, “Are you
in immediate danger?”

Timber bit back the strangled laugh then.
She’d made her wait and
then
asked that. And people wondered
why shifters didn’t trust these people. “No.”

“Then I’ll take your number and have him call
you.”

“It has to be tonight. Now.”

“I’ll see what I can do, ma’am, but he’s not
in right now. Are you sure you won’t speak to anyone else?” There
was a patronizing tone that left Timber shaking.

She let a growl edge into her voice, her hand
gripping the phone so tightly she knew her knuckles had leached
white. She snapped out her number.

“I’ll see what I can—”

“He’ll want to hear this as soon as possible.
Morning might not be in time.” And before the idiot woman could say
anything else, Timber hung up and sagged back into her chair. She’d
made a mistake. She knew it now. But the thought of yet another
Hound, possibly a pack, nosing around her house, asking her
questions...she couldn’t do it.

Refused to do it, when she knew damn well
they wouldn’t help her or any of her wolves.

She sucked in a hard breath and blew it out,
nice and slow. She’d talk to one Hound. If he chose to help it’d be
a bloody miracle, but at least it would just be
one
out
here.

Her phone vibrated in her hand a second
before the ringtone cut through the silence. Timber jumped, a
half-scream on her lips, but she looked down at the screen. A
number she didn’t recognize flashed in the darkness. She thumbed
over the button and answered.

“Hello?”

“Timber?” Brandt’s familiar voice filled her,
groggy and gravelly from sleep, and yet amazingly soothing. Strong.
She closed her eyes as another tremor of fear jolted through her
veins.

“He was here.”

Brandt growled over the other end and she
knew in that moment he’d snapped wide, wide awake. “What do you
mean he was there?”

There was a flurry of frantic movement in the
background, clothes being shaken out, and shoes skidding across the
floor. A whirl of a belt. “There’s a bloody hair tie on my front
steps. It’s Becky’s.”

“You should have told the operator—”

“I’m not dealing with anyone else.” He cursed
on the other end and she smiled. But it was one of those weak,
on-the-verge-of-tears smiles. Because what she was going to say
next, she didn’t want to say. When she spoke, it sounded breathy,
filled with the pain and fear she’d tried so hard to convince
herself had been left behind when she escaped Charles. “I think I
know more about your case than you do.”

“Are you safe? In any immediate danger?”

“I’m locked in. I think he’s gone.” But she
was always going to be in danger, she knew that now.

Brandt blew out a frustrated breath.

“I’m going to keep you on this line, but I
need to call in my pack.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he
cut her off before she could begin. “Look, you only have to talk to
me, but I want my pack out there. I want to make sure we comb every
inch of your territory looking for this guy. I want to make sure
you and your pack members are safe.”

She didn’t say a word, just leaned back in
her chair and waited for him to arrive. It was another twenty
minutes before headlights flashed through her living room window,
cutting through the curtains, and Timber dragged herself out of her
chair and to the front door. She recognized the uniform black SUVs
that pulled up in front of her house with STE emblazoned in white
on the front doors. Brandt got out first, issuing orders.

He waved for one man to follow him and walked
her way. “Shit,” she heard him whisper the moment he spotted the
hair tie. “Bag it, Tate, and make sure this place is searched.”

“You got it, boss.” The other man tilted his
head toward her and the door. “You want help in there?”

“No.” Brandt stepped around Tate and past the
bloody scrunchie on the front steps and lifted his hand to knock.
Timber undid the locks and let him in. “Thank you.”

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. The
other man, Tate, was watching her, and she wrapped her arms around
herself and escaped to her living room. She heard Brandt shut the
door behind him.

“You okay?” he called out.

No. She wasn’t okay. She blew out a shaky
breath. So far, everything Brandt had said, he’d done. Trust had to
begin somewhere, right?

“His name is Charles Wolfe.”

Chapter Five

Brandt paused in
the middle of her living room, stunned. He blinked at her. Timber
was still hugging herself, and there was an aura of fear around
her. She looked ready to break. But the way she said that name, in
a soft whisper full of horror, told him whoever Charles Wolfe was,
he was the bastard behind her fear.

“Who?”

She nodded at the door. “The man who dropped
that hair tie on my front steps.”

Holy shit. He rocked back slightly. They had
a name. He’d caught a whiff on his way in. It was the same bastard
who had killed Rebecca Morgan and the thirteen other women in his
case file.

“Looks like he got his wish, too,” she added,
and her eyes squeezed shut for just a second.

“What wish? And how do you know the man who
killed Ms. Morgan? Her boyfriend was a James—”

Irritation flared in Timber’s eyes as she cut
him off. “It wasn’t her ex. God, that would have been easy. And I
know her killer because he kept me trapped in Hell with him for a
year.”

Timber ran her hands up and down her upper
arms as if she were trying to chase away a chill. He could see her
whole body shaking. She wore a pair of sweatpants and an over-sized
T-shirt again. He figured this time she’d gotten dressed while he
was on his way over. At least into something more than a night
shirt.

“Talk to me,” he whispered, his voice as
soft, as soothing as he could make it.

“Four years ago...” She trailed off for a
second and shook her head. “It feels like it must have been longer
than that.”

“Timber, sit down. Breathe.”

She looked at him then, a quiet edge of
defeat in her gaze. “I tell myself to do that a lot, you know?
Breathe. In and out.” She snorted. “Depends on the day, how well it
works. But maybe
you
should sit down. It’s not a short
story.”

Brandt eased past her to the couch, hoping
that if he sat, she’d sit down too. She didn’t. No, she just stood
there, her hands clenched at her sides.

“I guess I should start from the beginning.”
She steadied herself and she looked like she was bracing for
impact, as if calling up the memories was calling down a lightning
bolt. Brandt knew the script, the things he was supposed to tell
someone to walk them through the pain of retelling, but never
before had they felt like lies on his lips.

Looking at Timber right now, he knew time
hadn’t healed a thing.

He’d heard a quote once, that nothing
cemented something in a person’s memory like wishing to forget it.
His sister had survived a serial killer—twice. But he’d seen the
look in Ollie’s eyes when she’d been praying to forget. Some things
a person couldn’t shake, they couldn’t outrun. Those were the
things that scarred the mind, burned into the soul.

Ollie had told him once that things that she
wished to forget more than anything else, those were the things she
could remember the clearest. Brandt didn’t think that was true for
his sister anymore, but, looking at Timber, he knew that whatever
Charles Wolfe had done to her, those were still her clearest
memories. Her living nightmares.

“I know this is hard,” he said softly,
watching as the scorn flashed across her face. She didn’t know just
how much he understood, and he couldn’t blame her for the instant
skepticism. There were words he was supposed to say:
I know this
is hard. He can’t get you here. You’re safe now
.

But even to him they sounded rehearsed.
False.

Timber didn’t need a cop right now. She
didn’t trust Hounds and she needed someone she could trust. “My
sister was taken by a killer the media called the Hunter. He
chained her up in a shack; she got loose while someone else
died.”

Surprise had flitted across Timber’s face the
moment the word “killer” registered. He watched her war with
herself, wanting to believe but not quite trusting. “The details
aren’t important, but afterwards, we talked. She said even the
littlest things she could still remember. Like the smell of dying
leaves and rotting wood. She said she never realized
how
birds go quiet in the woods when danger gets closer. It’s not a
sudden thing. It’s slow, like how the sun creeps along the horizon
in the morning. A few die off, then a few more, and it gets closer
until you know that whatever has scared the rest of the forest is
standing right behind you.”

Brandt paused and he could see the tears
shimmering in her eyes. She knew. For a moment she looked away and
he wasn’t sure there was anything he could say to make her open up,
and then finally, “It’s the smell of old brick. You never think
much about a smell like that, but it’s dry. Like a rock in your
mouth, and I can still taste it. I smelled it the first time I felt
the hair on the back of my neck prickle, the first time I knew
someone was following me.”

She paused for a moment and Brandt waited.
There was nothing else he could think to say. The rest had to come
from her.

“I worked at a small diner at the time,
finished work at obscene hours, and my car only worked half the
time. But it was a short walk from the diner to my apartment. No
biggie.”

She shrugged as if she meant it, but look in
her eyes belied her words. “It’s hard to sneak up on a shifter, you
know.”

Yeah. He knew. It was one of the reasons
Hounds were granted a bit of witch magick when they graduated the
Academy. It gave them a tiny advantage when dealing with
shifters.

“It was about three weeks of walking home
late at night, jumping at every shadow because I couldn’t find the
bastard I
knew
was following me every night, before I bumped
into him just outside my apartment complex. He shoved me against a
brick wall and asked if I was a wolf-shifter. Wanted to watch me
shift. I fought him off, ran inside the building, and called my
alpha. They told me they’d look into it. The night watchman
insisted I report it to STE as well.”

Bitterness clouded her face while she said
that. Hell. He only needed one guess. The local Hounds hadn’t done
a damn thing.

“I did. They waved me off and told me they’d
look into it. For a week, I had a different pack member walk me
home every night. No sign of the guy, so we wrote it off. The night
after they stopped walking me home, he grabbed me.”

“The same man you smelled out there on Ms.
Morgan’s hair tie?”

Timber nodded. “He was human then. Though he
wanted to be a shifter. A werewolf. He was fascinated by the myths.
The books. The movies.”

That’s what she’d meant about him getting his
wish. Hell, just what she’d said so far showed she knew more about
this killer than they’d ever released to the press. He had no doubt
she was telling the truth.

Brandt leaned back against the couch. And
now, incredibly, because of her, they had an ID on this guy for the
first time. They had a shot at catching him. “What happened?”

Her eyes shuttered and she wouldn’t look at
him. The muscle in her jaw twitched. “The usual. When a psycho
grabs a girl.”

“I know this is hard, but anything you can
tell me—”

“Whatever.” She cut him a glare. “At first,
he chained me to a bed. He raped me. Said I was his mate. He knew
what I was, knew wolves mated for life, and I was his. He just
wasn’t a wolf yet. Psychobabble, okay?”

She was rigid at this point. Brandt could
feel the whirling emotions as though they were a tornado around
her. The anger, the pain, the embarrassment, the fear—they churned
like a physical entity around her. “Every night when he was done he
begged me to turn him. To bite him. I did once. To prove to him it
didn’t work like that. Charles never liked being proven wrong.”

Her left hand rubbed against her hip, and
Brandt wondered what the man had done to her then, but he didn’t
ask. Right now, he just needed her to get through the basics. They
could worry about details later. He had a feeling she hadn’t told
anyone this story, not the full story. And despite the pain it was
causing her, he had to hear it.

“He had to unchain me that night. Remind me
of what I was.” She shook her head, and Brandt knew that, whatever
had happened, she wasn’t going to go there right now.
“After...after. Just
after
, okay? He forgot to re-chain me.
He passed out still holding me. It wasn’t the first time, but it
was the first time he’d ever left me loose.”

“What happened?”

“I ran. And a naked woman running down the
streets gets picked up by STE real fast. I told them what had
happened, and then Charles walked in the door. A human against a
shifter. They decided it was a lover’s quarrel.”

Brandt felt sick. He’d seen a lot of shit
when he’d been transferred from pack to pack, working his way up
the ladder. He’d seen lionesses returned to abusive prides. He
didn’t even need to guess, he knew they’d probably let that man
drag her out of there screaming.

“He had a bottle of medication with my name
on it. They bought his bullshit story that I was a nut job and that
he was the kind soul who took care of me. And the bruises, the
cuts? Oh, I just liked it rough.”

“I’m sorry,” Brandt said softly, but she
shook her head.

“Don’t. Just don’t. It wasn’t long after that
the first woman died. Another wolf. She wasn’t his destined mate,
though, so she didn’t have to stay in his hell. Apparently, he
could fuck them, chew them up, and kill them. But I was the only
one who didn’t get to die after a night of him. He liked the full
moon thing, too. I tried to convince him it took more than just a
bite to turn someone, so next he decided it required a sacrifice on
a full moon.”